Stokesy44 wrote: Fri Nov 24, 2017 8:45 am
Looking really good mate. The metal skirts and shrouds look the business. Looking forward to seeing the painting started.
TommyKillander wrote: Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:42 pm
The Tiger looks fantastic!
Good luck with the painting
Tommy
Thank you guys!
I'm not a big fan of "rivet counting". For me the visuals, the story behind is more important, then the accuracy. Still I like to do researches and be historically accurate. So before painting I spent a lot of time to find accurate camo descriptions about the vehicles of 101st battalion in France, 1944.
This one for is a 3 color pattern made of thin lines:

(
http://www.alanhamby.com/paints.shtml)
Some more 3 tone patterns with thick lines:
But somehow I like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this thread: Tiger 131 from 101st

Other vehicle from the same time period and company:
For me this looks like a 2 tone pattern: dark green over dunkelgelb base. And it looks like a hand painted, soft edge, random paint.
Also the manually colored photo shows 2 colors.
This one shows something similar:

(
On this Printerest page your can find a great collection of camos)
Interesting, that the picture of 131 shows no camo on the sideskirts and the mud guard on the back. Or is this just the fading effect of the shiny surface? What do you think? I would assume that the camo was applied during transportation, or short before or after that. During transportation the sideskirts were usually removed. If this would be true, the question is why are the wheels painted? They were removed, too... Dunno... To paint, or not to paint, that is the Question...

Additionally this type of camo leaves more of the modulation visible.
Ok, after all this contemplation let's make some progress!
First: Large metal surfaces were covered with Mr.Metal Primer, then everything with Ultimate Black primer
Second: I forgot to glue the spare tracks on...
The instruction calls for 4 on the left side, and 3 on the right. Actually they never had 4 of left...
According to
Tiger1.info this was the most commonly used layout for mid and late tigers:
Luckily both solutions deal with 7 track links.
I glued the upper clips on first. Then glued the bottom parts to the individual track links with regular paper glue. This way I could put the lower holders with CA to their exact place, and easily remove the tracks one CA dried.
I painted the gun barrel to german gray (XF-63) to have some more colors on the tank. As far I know gun barrels were primed with a dark gray primer, which was more resistant to heat and expansion. In my story the Tiger's gun barrel has been damaged, had to be replaced, and the new barrel wasn't painted yet. Historically accurate tank? No. Based on facts? Yes. Not counting rivets, but based on real facts, and has it's own story...
I covered it with masking tape, and shoot the rest with dark yellow (XF-60).
Painted some highlights and modulation with 50-50 of XF-60 dark yellow and XF-55 deck tan.
Also the tools and accessories were painted.
Am I going to cover the tools with the camo? Numerous times the tools and even the spare tracks were not removed while the crew applied the camo on field. On the picture the tow cable was definitely not painted, so I assume the tools are intact, too.
Before the exhaust covers are glued to their place I created a rusty look. Here it is step by step.
First the exhausts were painted using AMMO's Chipping color (044)
In the next step I applied oils from Abtailung 501. I went from darker to brighter colors, applying with stippling motions.
First was Dark Rust, second was Light Rust, and Red Primer was the last one.
While the paint was still wet I added Rust and Sand pigments made by Humbrol.
As last step I chipped the upper plate of the exhausts with AMMO's Chipping color (044), and imitated the smoke by applying black pigments.
Here they are without the protecting masks:
Sadly it is not too visible after gluing the shields on.
I think I'm ready now to apply hairspray and dark green (XF-61).
As always thank you everybody for reading my status report, asking questions, leaving comments, or just dropping in and stopping by for a few moments!
Cheers,
Attila